At this year’s Edith Stein Project, representatives from three communities of sisters spoke about religious life.  The panel focused on each sister’s personal calls to consecrated life.

The first speaker was Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel from the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia from Nashville, Tennessee.  Religion was not a major part of her life, she said, until she was a sophomore in high school. 

That year, she made her First Confession and Communion at the urging of her associate pastor.  Sr. Jane Dominic identified this as an important milestone in her faith.  Experiencing the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, she said, is “part of understanding who this God is who loves us.”

In college Sr. Jane Dominic began a relationship with what she described as the “perfect boyfriend”— romantic, loving, and religious.  “One of the graces of that relationship was that he challenged me,” Sr. Jane Dominic said, noting that “love creates a free space” where one can become the person God wants one to be.  After over three years of dating, Sister Jane Dominic’s boyfriend proposed to her, and she accepted.

God had other plans, though.  “Jesus started to take my heart away,” she said.  “God was . . . working in my heart.  He was working in my soul.”  While attending a friend’s wedding with her fiancé, Sr. Jane Dominic realized that she could not marry him.  After deciding to call off the engagement and enter religious life, Sr. Jane Dominic felt completely at peace.  She went on a retreat with the Nashville Dominicans and decided to join the order.  “It felt like home,” she said, “and there was joy.”

Reflecting on her life, Sr. Jane Dominic said that God gave her everything she ever thought she wanted in order to show her that it was not enough.  “If God is calling you,” Sr. Jane Dominic said, “Jesus has written His name on your heart, and if you look in your heart, you will see it.”

Sr. Constance Carolyn, a Little Sister of the Poor and the next speaker, started her talk with a biography of the order’s founder, St. Jeanne Jugan.  The order’s charism, Sr. Constance Carolyn said, is living the Beatitudes by offering hospitality to the elderly.

Sr. Constance Carolyn became involved with the Little Sisters of the Poor as a rising sophomore in high school in order to gain community service hours for her college applications.  From the first days, she said, “I was literally seized by God in the person of the poor . . . who seemed to be saying, ‘This is what I made you for.’”  She said that it was “very clear but also very terrifying.”  In college, Sr. Constance Carolyn volunteered with the Little Sisters of the Poor, although her parents thought she should concentrate on her studies.  The year after graduating from college, she joined the order.  She will celebrate her silver jubilee next year.

Sr. Benedicta Dunn, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration and the final speaker, said that she grew up in a loving family with a disciplinarian approach to faith.  She started college at the University of Chicago and found it to be a very secular environment, lacking in spiritual formation.

While studying abroad in Pisa, Sr. Benedicta travelled to a conference to which a friend had invited her.  Due to her limited Italian, she initially did not realize that Pope John Paul II was dying.  When she got to St. Peter’s Basilica, the number of people there praying for the pope was overwhelming. 

“I (knew) truth was there, but I hadn’t been able to accept it for myself,” Sister Benedicta said.  The worldwide outpouring of prayer helped her realize the universality of the Church and planted the seed for her vocation.

That summer, Sr. Benedicta transferred to Notre Dame.  There she found people her age who were serious about their faith, prompting her to investigate it more for herself.  She began going to daily Mass and attended a silent retreat, during which she realized that authentic faith involves the whole person and all aspects of one’s life.

As a junior in college, Sister Benedicta was still undecided about her vocation.  While praying for guidance one day, she suddenly felt very close to God.  That evening, she had a flashback to her experience in Rome and realized, “Whoa . . . I am so called!”  After a retreat with the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in Mishawaka, Indiana, she discerned a call to their order.  When she had finished her degree, she joined them.  She will make her first vows this fall.

Teresa Anne Gorman is a freshman who can’t think of anything funny right now. If you have any ideas for a humorous byline, you can contact her at tgorman2@nd.edu